LLVM/Clang Replacing GCC In FreeBSD Base

In the quarterly report for FreeBSD, we learned something interesting: the FreeBSD developers intend to replace GCC with LLVM/Clang. The FreeBSD project wants to replace the GNU Compiler Collection with the Apple-backed Clang front-end compiler from LLVM. They mention in their quarterly report that this newer compiler can already build 99% of the packages in FreeBSD and even its kernel on i386 and amd64 architectures. They admit though bugs are withstanding and LLVM's C++ support is still very immature. There are over 100 Clang bugs that the FreeBSD developers have reported, but the LLVM developers are working on them.

Will we see more free software operating systems switching to LLVM/Clang? LLVM is more modular, is a newer code-base, is licensed to be more commercial friendly, and is already being used for tasks like compiling and optimizing GPU shaders.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the web-site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience and being the largest web-site devoted to Linux hardware reviews, particularly for products relevant to Linux gamers and enthusiasts but also commonly reviewing servers/workstations and embedded Linux devices. Michael has written more than 10,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics hardware drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated testing software. He can be followed via Twitter and Google+ or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.